Harrisburg School District apparently has

more money than brains these days. At last night's meeting the Board of Control voted 6 -1 to rehire Triad Strategies of Harrisburg for $90,000 annually to be the school district's lobbyist in the halls of power in state and federal government. And get this, they made Triad's contract retroactive to October. Retroactive to October! Wasn't that nice of the Board of Control? The lone dissenter on the board, Trent Hargrove, voted against the contract with no comment.

A former Board of Control member, Les Ford, criticized the rehiring last night, saying that this money could be better spent to fund parent-teacher organizations or for other classroom uses. Les is right. That could also pay for 2 additional teachers' salaries for a year, or more instructional materials, etc.

For the current 2007-08 school year, Harrisburg School District requested $20 million in state demonstration grants, but only received $3 million after receiving as much as $13.5 million for the program the year before. Triad Strategies President and Managing Director Roy Wells speculates that Harrisburg may have reached the ceiling in what it can expect in directed state grants and other add-on money for special programs. Ya think?? Wells then goes on to say that his strategy would focus on pointing out the amount of tax-exempt state property within the school district. I am assuming that he means that he will be pointing that out to federal and state education departments and anyone else he runs into in the halls of power. Neither the reporter nor Mr. Wells really elaborates that in this article.

Since the good people of Harrisburg are paying Mr. Gerald Kohn a generous salary of at least $235,000 a year, can't Mr. Kohn do the same thing as part of his duties? I mean, he can point out to the proper authorities that there is a large amount of tax-exempt state property within the school district, and since there is, perhaps Harrisburg School District should receive more money for it's schools. Can't he do that too? Jeez Louise, me thinks the good people of Harrisburg are getting ripped off!

Oh, and don't forget, Randy King, who was King Reed's right hand man for so many years, left City Hall to take a job with Triad. The same Randy King who is on the Board of School Directors with the Board of Control, for the Harrisburg School District. Interesting huh?